Preserving biodiversity and more: Reforestation with Treedom

From a global perspective, Europe is known for its high level of awareness around environmental issues. The European Union has taken the lead in developing environmental laws and regulations, and a range of European corporations continue to implement forward-thinking environmental initiatives. In 2022, Yakult Europe B.V. entered into a partnership with Treedom, a global web platform working to plant trees and expand forests across the globe, to grow the Yakult Forest together with all of our employees. This initiative not only contributes to reforestation, it also has the potential to bring social and economic benefits for local communities in developing nations.

Harvesting oranges in Ecuador

Treedom was established in Italy in 2010. It promotes reforestation through a system where seedlings purchased online are planted and cultivated by local farmers in places like Africa and Central and South America. To date Treedom has partnered with approximately 11,000 companies, with 220,000 farmers in 15 countries having planted 3.8 million trees. There are many tree-planting organizations around the world, but Treedom is unique in both their long-term support for the planted trees and their efforts surrounding forestry conservation and management. For this reason, Treedom’s planting cost per tree is higher than those of other organizations. However, we found noticeable differences compared to other organizations in the way Treedom tackles environmental issues such as biodiversity and climate change, as well as offering the social and economic opportunities to farmers.

Harvesting oranges in Ecuador

A Tanzanian farmer watering young avocado plants

Creating online Yakult Forest community with Yakult employee

While valuing Treedom’s unique activities, it took continuous discussion with corporate communication colleagues in each country to select one organization for partnership. In this internal selection and planning process, we have discussed thoroughly the objective of this partnership and found that vision of Treedom perfectly matches Yakult’s corporate philosophy and Environmental Vision.  So we have decided to move forward with the partnership and to start where we can.

To celebrate this partnership we gifted actual plant with online Treedom code to all Yakult group colleagues in Europe so everyone can choose the type of their trees and country where trees will be planted according to their choice and join Yakult forest on Treedom platform.Through the Yakult Forest page, employees can follow the stories of the growing trees with pictures and geographical information where trees are planted. Internally we have received positive employee feedback that they are happy and excited to see actual action and one step towards better tomorrow.

Plants and Treedom codes gifted to employees

Yakult Forest webpage

Expanding initiatives with a wide variety of stakeholders

We have also worked to maximize this partnership through external communication. We have created press releases which has been announced in each language on local websites across Europe. To further raise awareness of this initiative, we sent out newsletters and promoted it on social media. In addition, we also gifted Treedom codes to our external stakeholders and consumers and offered them the opportunity to join the Yakult Forest community.

Furthermore, in September 2022, Yakult Europe B.V. and the City of Almere in the Netherlands cohosted a CSR seminar at Floriade Expo 2022, international horticulture exhibition. We invited Treedom as one of the speakers to highlight for both internal and external stakeholders the importance of active partnerships to improve society and the environment.

As of June 2023, our partnership with Treedom has resulted in 6,747 trees planted in seven different countries, which is expected to reduce CO₂ by 1,880.4 tons.

Ruaha National Park , Tanzania

At Yakult Europe B.V., we will continue striving to grow the Yakult Forest not only with Yakult employees but also through an expanded community of stakeholders.